


after the desert falls the rain

by DreamingAmethystDragons



Series: i hope you'll stick around [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy XIII Series
Genre: F/F, Fang is a giant sap, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Gifts, Proposals, ignores the events of xiii-2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-28
Updated: 2017-06-28
Packaged: 2018-11-20 12:57:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11336007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamingAmethystDragons/pseuds/DreamingAmethystDragons
Summary: There's someone knocking at the door.  It's the last person Lightning is expecting at this hour.





	after the desert falls the rain

She’s not been home for more than two minutes when a soft rapping sounds at her door.

From her position over on the couch, Lightning undrapes the arm cast over her eyes, glances sidelong out the living room.  The day was long and her bones are lead and stone; a fledgling society alchemizing itself into something else on a once-feared plain away from their lost crystal sky will always sprout a dozen new demanding mouths after one has been sated.  The volunteers, the do-gooders, can only do so much.  She spent the day guarding the construction of a new apartment complex; the most thrilling part was beating down the goblins that crept over the hillside ridge in twos and fives.  Human hands should not hold this many splinters.

In short, her temper’s shot and Lightning doesn’t think she has much more than the dregs of patience to entertain any visitors.  If it’s her sister, she’ll try her best, but if it’s her sister’s bear of a boyfr- husband, whatever, he can stay out in the rain.  She curls her fingers around the jut of an ankle and contemplates the far door that leads to a soft bed and what she hopes will be a gentler night not bound and bookended by nightmares.

The rapping sounds again and Lightning makes a wordless grumble deep in her throat.  Sounds too heavy-handed to be Serah, she thinks, but it’s likely that most of those in the circles  _ she _ runs in would stand there knocking til the crystal spire falls to dust.  With little grace and less goodwill she stands, momentarily wobble-kneed, before padding in bare feet over to the door.  At least she can kindly tell them to go in less-kind words if it comes to that.

When she opens the door, however, the visitor waiting there was the last person she’d been expecting.

It’s Fang.

More intriguingly, it’s a Fang who doesn’t immediately come stepping over the threshold with a friendly laugh and joke in her teeth.  She lowers the hand that must have been about to knock again, dark hair dripping with water in the fading light of dusk.  “‘S a damn dreary day out here,” Fang says in that familiar drawl, but there’s something about her - something in the corners of her eyes and the curve of a mouth that’s softer, warmer than Lightning remembers.  “Have room in there for a visitor?”

And because it’s Fang, and maybe because she’s thrown by Fang not muscling her way inside as she usually does, Lightning moves aside to let her in.

She clicks the deadbolt into place and turns, and holds herself still when she finds that Fang hasn’t moved must further into the house.  The dampness of her garments can’t be comfortable, but aside from placing her bisected spear on the table and starting to unhook extra supplies from her belt all Fang does is cock her head back at Lightning, eyes soft and appraising.  Lighting meets her gaze for a second, tiredness helping her keep her face impassive, but after a few beats she slips into the kitchen to throw Fang a hand towel that is accepted with a quirk of a smile. 

“... Hope you weren’t in the middle of anything,” Fang finally says, dropping the towel over the back of a chair and cradling something small and unseen in the shelter of her palm.  “Was in the area to go check the new bounties, and I thought, hey, I should stop by and give you somethin’ and stop pussyfootin’ around.”

Lightning stops in the middle of her slow meandering back to the couch, but only for a moment; the cushions are too inviting and her muscles too sore.  “Something for me?”  She says, embarrassed for a moment by how soft her voice sounds around the words; she buries and hides it by dropping down to the couch and brusquely adding, “As long as you’re not expecting theatrics.”

To her credit, Fang only laughs; she places a hand on the back of the couch and vaults over to land heavily on the other side.  Lightning cracks open an eye to study her.  In the few years after Cocoonfall, Fang’s gotten slightly broader, more muscular; the slightest dip of a scar clips her jawline.  She looks the part of a hunter spending her days under the sun and bottomless sky.  If it were anyone else and she someone different, Lightning might be somewhat annoyed; it’s not that she herself hasn’t stayed fit, but she’s still slightly slimmer.  The old adage about being built for speed slips past her mind, but her eyes are caught and inexplicably Lightning feels her cheeks heat.  “Although, you might want to get on with it before I fall asleep.”

“Alright, but I hope I’m not that boring.”  Fang fiddles with her hands for a moment, and Lightning pulls herself up to sit cross-legged, facing her companion.  She’s not quite used to this softer Fang, the one glancing at her with something unabashedly warm in her face, and Lightning rolls her shoulder, fidgeting.  Before she can open her mouth to goad Fang on, though, Fang speaks up again.  “You’re kind of wonderful, you know that?”

No, she’s not.  She’s about to remind Fang of this, but she’s overridden by Fang shifting closer so their knees are only an inch or three apart, and she swears Fang is warm enough she can sense her from her.  “You are,” Fang repeats, eyes the color of oaks leaves in summer, and Lightning settles for biting her lip instead.  “Even though I get the feeling you aren’t told that enough.”

“... Are you here to flatter me, or to give me something?” Lightning murmurs, eyes skating away and down, the back of her neck warm.  It’s okay, she tells herself.  Humor her.

“Why not both?” Fang makes a noise that’s both laugh and sigh.  “But, oh… here.  Hold your hands out.”

Lightning obliges, cupping them together, and Fang finally drops the thing she was fidgeting with into her palms.

… It’s warm.  Not hot, but warm, like it had soaked in the ambient heat around Fang’s skin.  Lightning cradles it closer to examine it - it’s a little statuette, pale and smooth to the touch.  It’s a little stylized, but Lighting gently brushes her fingers over the grooves that form tiny teeth, claws, the bunching of fur at shoulders, the crest of spines along a back.  A tiny gorgonopsid, frozen mid-howl, suspended at his shoulders and the base of his tail by a black cord, with the tiniest of green gemstones for eyes.  

Whatever Lightning was expecting, this was as far away as possible from, and she exhales a breath that she didn’t know she was holding.  “It’s… amazing.” she breathes, before looking back up at Fang.  “Are you sure this is for me?”

Fang has a funny smile on her face that Lightning’s never seen before, both corners of her mouth twitching.  “Yes, I’m sure.  Wouldn’t have spent the time to make it if I didn’t know who I was gonna give it to, yeah?  Bugger wasn’t easy to carve.”

“You  _ made _ this?”  Realizing how that must’ve sounded, Lightning verbally stumbles in her haste to add, “It must have taken a good bit of time to capture all the details.”

“Well, I’ll take that as a thank you.”  Fang scoots a little closer still, her knees and shoulders brushing against Lightning’s as she leans forward to tap the little creature’s snout.  “I’ll admit I had to do a few trials beforehand; it’s been too bloody long since I’d last tried anything of the sort.”  She snorts, all exasperation and fond recollection.  “I remember some of the elders spending all their time carving these little guys, so they might be rollin’ in their graves a little.  I don’t think he turned out too badly once I got goin’ though.”

“Why a gorgonopsid?”  Lightning touches his paw, studying the tiny chisel marks.

“Ah… Well.”  Fang runs a quick hand over her head somewhat ruefully.  “They were one of the critters that the Yuns always had an affinity too.  Stubborn buggers, but fierce in a fight an’ they look after their own.  Something you gotta respect, yeah?  A couple hunters - usually the best of the best, you understand - had tamed some pups, and they were loyal to a fault unless you were being stupid.”  She ghosts her hand over the carving before cupping Lightning’s wrist gently.  Lightning only just refrains from jumping at the contact.  “Reminds me of home, really.”

_ Why give it to me, then? _ Is what Lightning wants to ask, but instead what comes out of her mouth is, “Is it bone, then?”

“Yeah.”  Lightning is surprised to see Fang look away, rubbing the bridge of her nose.  “He’s actually… from a piece of bone of the first gorgonopsid we took down, way back when we all first hit Gran Pulse.”

Lightning is speechless for a little while, running her fingers over it.  That Fang had kept a piece of that memory, all this time… She senses eyes back on her, and suddenly she feels a torrent of warmth for the woman sitting next to her, who had always been a stalwart partner in battle and out.  Only a handful of people, if that, ever made that cut.  After winding the cord around her hands she finds the clasp to unhook it, and she’s on the verse of doing so when Fang’s hands are back over hers.

“Hang on… before you put it on, sunshine, there’s one more thing.”  Now Fang looks a little nervous, more so than she had before she’d given Lightning the necklace, and Lightning can only blink back in surprise.  Fang watches her, takes a breath and pauses, then says softly, “I’m not kidding, from before, when I called you wonderful.”

“I’m not above hitting you for it,” Lightning responds, dropping her gaze for a second before peeking back up under her eyelashes.  “Compliments don’t serve me much.”

“They’re nice to hear, though, and I  _ want _ to say them.”  At the look Lightning directed at her, Fang blushes - actually  _ blushes _ , she’s never seen the woman do that.  “Er, sorry, this is coming out in kind of a jumble.”

Lightning is somewhat mystified, but she cards her thumbs to press Fang’s hands comfortingly.  She can hear the steady drum of rain overhead on the roof.  “It’s fine.  Now what’s this ‘one other thing?’”

“Right to the point, huh.”  Fang licks her lips.  “Well, like I told you, gorgonopsids were kind of important to the Yun.  Elder Yun were always crafting all sorts of critters, but pretty much anyone who’s a Yun would learn how to make these guys when we weren’t learning battle or hunting skills.  To give one as a gift, especially a gorgonopsid, would be a big thing - like to a kid on their first hunt, to a newborn, or…” The last part is said almost under Fang’s breath.  “... To someone beloved, as a keepsake or proposal.”

Lightning holds still, eyes and hands both caught.  Her face is warm, and she swallows sharply before asking, quiet, unsure, “... Well, I’m definitely far from my first hunt.”

Fang outright barks a laugh at that before she twists her body to face Lightning fully, the calluses on the pads of her fingers scraping over Lightning’s knuckles.  There’s something terribly vulnerable and hopeful at once in her face, pairing with the nervous energy buzzing down Lightning’s spine.  She’s fully awake now, for certain.  “Before you go running and doubting, sunshine, I’ve had a lot of time to think about this.  I  _ am _ sure, just as sure as I am when I compliment you.  You’re a beautiful an’ fierce woman, Lightning, one that I’m honored and grateful to have been friends with these past few years - bringin’ down Cocoon notwithstanding,” and Lightning has to give a small snort.  “But I’m giving it to you honest, here, Sunshine, that I’ve got feelings beyond just bein’ a friend by now.  Puttin’ on that necklace… well, no one aside from Vanille might get the reference, but that’s the equivalent of accepting my proposal, but even if you don’t want to wear it, I still want you to keep it.”

Setting this up to fall all back on herself if she’s rejected, when Fang certainly must know how Lightning has never dated anyone before, much less kissed or held hands.  Soft and earnest and profoundly hopeful.  Lightning’s heart is somewhere up in the base of her throat, beating hard enough she wonders if Fang could hear it, if she could touch it if she wanted.  

Could she do this with Fang?  Be a… a partner, a girlfriend?  With Fang - steadfast, burning Fang, always with a quick remark and laugh at her lips and with the skill to match her big talk.  Fang, who was a constant, who had been since the days of grief as l’Cie.  Fang, with honesty and grace, who occasionally needled Lightning out of her shell, who was sitting before her with something eggshell-hopeful and endlessly patient cradled in the palms of her hands.

Could she be that, for someone?

She…

For her, Lightning suddenly finds…

Just maybe…

She wants to try.

So she tugs her hands out of Fang’s and when the startled-scared look on Fang’s face morphs into something wide-eyed and joyous when Lightning raises the cord past her shoulders, and she trips over her hastily whispered “Let me” to fasten the necklace behind her neck.  The little creature hangs right in the hollow of Lightning’s throat, and she finds that the look of wonder in Fang’s eyes is enough to make her heart skip steps and beats into a tempo both lulling and exciting.

“Sunshine,” Fang breathes, and oh, this must be what love feels like.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
